You never forget your first “faggot.” Where you were when the word first came hurtling at you, who sent it flying in your direction, and what happened when it finally hit you. You never forget if a fist or baseball bat came swinging right behind it, or if the word was whispered, or spray-painted, if it came costumed in another word’s clothes: sissy, punk, different, queer, pansy. You never forget your first “faggot” because the memory makes you.
I wrote about Mark Carson, the anti-gay attacks in New York City, and the cities we run away to…
Maybe it’s the refuge that never was. Maybe all we’ve ever done is escape from one seemingly intolerable place only to put down roots in a place we ourselves could tolerate.